Jodi’s Running Blog

Unfortunately, I don’t have much exercise-related news to convey to the few readers who may still exist out there (I’m sure many of you have stopped reading during my hiatus from posting). However, the positive news is that I am counting down the days until July 17, 2007 - the date of expected arrival of my first child! I have been archiving bits and pieces of my pregnancy tale on my general blog, Residential Space, since last December.

When Evan and I were faced with a decision about which stroller to purchase, around the same time that our R.E.I. annual rebate became available for use, we thought the BOB Revolution was a good choice. It’s pretty sharp - we have the infant seat adapter for our baby’s first eight months, until he can be strapped in directly. Then, he can accompany his parents on many running adventures as his mother recovers her fitness level! We joke about how the tires are built for off-roading.

Anyway, my apologies again for the absence of posting. My exercise lately has consisted of finishing my second year of residency - only two more years to go until I am a fully board-eligible neurologist! Stay tuned for my adventures in postpartum running.

Wow, so it’s been awhile since a running blog post. Yikes! I have been quite devout in keeping my Residential Space blog, but seem to have slacked on this front. It does not mean that exciting things have not been occurring, though!

As I announced on my other blog, we are expecting a little one in July 2007, which means many positive changes are coming my way. I found out quickly that it also meant running was going to present a problem. I had always pictured myself running 3-5 miles daily until my delivery date, but when I tried to run at 10 weeks - let’s just say broad ligaments had other ideas. It’s great, though, because the pregnancy has motivated Evan and I to set definitive exercise times together three mornings a week. We have both been swamped at work lately, but on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday mornings at 6AM, we are in the fitness room, me on the elliptical trainer, and Evan on the treadmill running. I watch him sometimes, feeling envious that he is running as the elliptical is not as exciting. It’s okay, though - soon enough.

We have also been skiing again this winter, both at Summit (45 minutes east of Seattle), and at Whistler, British Columbia (the site of the 2010 Winter Olympics). I had a week of vacation in mid-January, and we enjoyed three days on the slopes there. The gondola rides were tremendous - 25 minutes long, with extended ski times prior to having to take a lift/gondola again. There were no lines, and our condo was adjacent to the loading zone for the gondola, so it was a two minute walk to the slopes each day. I stuck mostly to greens for fear of falling in my current state, but it was a wonderful trip all the same.

Finally, it appears we have accumulated hundreds of dollars of REI points this year, between in-store purchases and the REI Visa, and we plan on using them to purchase the super-nifty baby jogger that I have promised myself for year. I used to see people running 5ks while pushing their infants/toddlers, and I have to think many of those kids grow up to be the enthusiastic seven year old runners that pass me on hills. Well-spent REI points, I think.

So I’m still here, just in a slightly different phase of life, but still kicking!

Evan and I met Josh in Portland for the Portland Marathon. Despite not being able to run the race (after much disappointment - please see any prior posts for further information on the back story), we had a great time cheering for exhausted runners on a beautiful sunny day! Josh looked at me during the race and said, “This makes me want to run another marathon.” I hate to admit it, but I can completely relate to that feeling, despite having been out with my stress fracture for months now. Once marathon running/training is in your system, it’s like an addictive drug.

Here we are at the race:

Other generic race photos:

And then, of course, we had to enjoy our post-marathon meal. Twenty-six miles really works up the appetite!

I went running with the salmon again this year, but this time it was an extra special experience because Evan joined me! Plus, this year I ran the 5k instead of the 10k, which varied things up a bit.

As you know, I have been sitting out since that dreaded pubic ramus stress fracture in June, and I decided to take it easy, enjoy the day, have fun with Evan, and soak up the festivities. It felt fantastic to be running - we ran 11 minute miles (you can click here to read Evan’s post about the day, complete with our results). I was quite astonished to find that I was even sore the following day – after sitting out for so long, a low-impact, fun race left me sore from the waist down. My muscles need to wake up!

I am also inspired recently by my friend, Beth, who has recently sought out the services of a personal trainer. She is now swimming, kick boxing, and goodness knows what else! Tomorrow is the day I am signing up for my fitness center membership at the University of Washington – I would love to run once a week, swim once or twice a week, and then devote an afternoon occasionally to cycling. That is - until I can be a full-time runner again.

I am appalled that I have not posted to this blog since July - the pubic ramus stress fracture has taken me out of commission, and I think my interest in running plummeted as a result. I spent much of August growing more depressed until mid-September, when Evan invited me to ride my bicycle to Ballard with him (a 19 mile roundtrip ride). It was the first real exercise I’ve had since training for the marathon last spring - and it felt terrific. I could feel my spirit rekindle just challenging my muscles and increasing my heart rate. Cardiac output is a wonderful thing.

The stress fracture is much better - I can ride my mountain bike without pain, and can even walk around in heels now without feeling it. Yesterday, as I was getting out of my car at 3:30AM after having been at the hospital during the night, I could feel a slight throbbing in that location, but it’s the first I’ve experienced in several weeks. With this in mind, Evan and I are going to attempt the Salmon Days Rotary Run 5k in Issaquah on October 8th - going at a slow speed, walking part of the way, and just seeing how things go. I had a terrific 10k experience during this race last year and look forward to returning, albeit at a much slower pace.

As for the Portland Marathon - well, I still have vacation that would enable me to participate, but I will be a spectator for this one. Evan and I are meeting Josh in Portland on September 30 and will cheer the runners on! I’m sure we will find time for good food, maybe some wine, and a short run of our own.

I am encouraged by speaking with my current neurology attending today. He and his wife participate in triathlons (and from what I can gather, they are both quite impressive athletes). After singing her praises, he was relaying to us that she is currently injured. Later in the conversation he mentioned a past injury of hers. I suppose my feeling for the past few months was - maybe I’m prone to injury and shouldn’t be running distances. But it seems injuries are par for the course when sports are a passion.

I am completing my second week on crutches for my stress fracture, and while the first two days I thought my shoulders and underarms would carry permanent pain for eternity, I found that my upper body grew strong quickly! My arms feels more toned and my pubic ramus feels much better from not bearing weight on it.

I plan to use them for a few more days and then go off of them, likely later this week. At that point I am also going to begin biking the mile and a half to work each day – nothing huge, but just a fun, environmentally-friendly way to get to work.

Speaking of environmentally-friendly ways to get to work, one of my colleagues got into a wreck when we were post-call the other day after a sleepless night on call. I used the opportunity to encourage her to ride the electric trolley bus that runs from her home on Queen Anne to Harborview, and on our next call night, she excitedly told me she had, indeed, taken the bus! One more person working against global warming.

I have never had a fracture of any sort in my entire life, but yesterday when I finally got in to see a sports medicine doctor about my groin/hip/hamstring? pain, I got the bad news. Recap: while running on the treadmill on June 8th, I was gradually hit with worsening left groin pain. A few hours later, it felt more like medial hamstring pain. Ice and heat did not help, and NSAIDs only minimally. Once the inflammation settled a bit over the next few days, it felt more like bony pain, and this time in the groin/gluteal region. I was having difficulty pinpointing exactly which muscle could be causing this, and then I became worried that there was something wrong with a bone.

Here is an image of the pubic rami with a box outlining these structures – they are the rings at the base of the pelvis.

An x-ray confirmed a stress fracture in the left pubic ramus, not the most common site for a runner (unlike the foot or tibia), but seen from time to time. So the bad news is, not only can I not run for a while, but I have to minimize weight bearing, and given its location, I cannot use the elliptical trainer nor exercise with a bicycle either. It looks like it may be time to get that pool membership…

I’m two weeks out from my hamstring injury, and while much of the pain is gone the muscle still feels very stiff in the mornings. I still feel it when I lift the affected foot up to put on a sock. I was warned that it could take weeks to months to heal, but I figured if I rested adequately, stretched, took my ibuprofen and used ice/heat properly it would speed the process. I recognize that it has only been two weeks, but I feel like I’m losing too much time on the road to the Portland Marathon.

I exercised for the first time during this two week period today by getting on the elliptical trainer and going for only about 15 minutes/2.5 miles. It felt great to get my heart rate up, but the muscle did feel very stiff following even just this amount of exertion. I spent about 20 minutes stretching afterwards. Anyway, I’ll keep you posted.

Sorry to be so negative in my title, folks, but it has been a downer of a week for training. Please refer to my previous post for a clue as to why I might feel this way.

In brief - the hamstring was injured on 6/8/06, last Thursday. The following day I was sent home from an on-call night at work because the pain was so severe I was having difficulty walking. Saturday was not much better. On Sunday, Evan was to run the Furry 5k at Seward Park in Seattle. I was actually able to park the car and walk five blocks to the event. However, this did not work out so well either - not only was Evan’s asthma acting up around thousands of dogs, but the last registration bib number was given to the person in line in front of him, so the registration person gave him a “sorry” with a shrug.

So far this week, I’m better able to walk and climb stairs, but it still hurts like crazy to lift my leg into the air in order to put a sock on. I spoke with a physical therapist at work who was kind enough to show me some stretches and exercises to assist with healing. Unfortunately, she told me these injuries can take - get this - MONTHS to heal. I absolutely refuse to believe this injury will require that much rest. An injury kept me from the London Marathon in 2005, and this time I was so much more careful, built mileage very gradually, and yes, I included speed work, but was not doing anything extreme the morning of this latest injury. I’m on call again tomorrow night and post-call on 6/15. The following day I am going to try getting on the elliptical trainer to see if I can tolerate it. If it reproduces the pain, then the next step is to obtain a membership at a facility with a swimming pool to maintain my fitness level until the muscle heals. If you have any other suggestions, feel free to send them this way.

Anyway, my brief week in review for the running I was able to do - ran a total of about 15 miles prior to the injury.

I suppose the bright side is that the marathon is not until October 1st. This is currently Week #9 of 24 in training, and while this is definitely a set-back, I believe there is still time to prepare for race day. I will likely cut out the speed workouts in favor of just getting the mileage under the belt. I’ll keep you posted.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have our first marathon training injury for this training cycle! Yesterday, during a steady run on a treadmill, I threw in a couple of fartlek sprints. I felt fine, but when I went to mark my split time for the completion of the fourth mile, I thought I felt some pain in my groin. By 4.5 miles it was a terribly persistent, 6/10 pain and had generalized more to the back of my leg. I stopped prematurely (was supposed to run 5 miles, but didn’t feel it was worth pushing the extra half of a mile), stretched without relief, and went home. I sat on a bag of ice and took ibuprofen, but still no relief. I went to work, had a difficult time with walking, stair climbing, etc, came home early, pretty much sat on ice on and off throughout the day, continued with the NSAIDs, and still no relief.

Today I am supposed to be on call, but (fortunately, I think) my chief resident sent me home and brought in a replacement as the pain had become excrutiating by mid-morning. So again, this is day 2 of NSAIDs and sitting on ice. The pain is even more localized now to the medial portion of the back of my leg and runs up in that same medial path to the insertion at the ischial spine. I have been reading about sports injuries on Injuredrunner.com and Emedicine, which have both been helpful with suggesting strengthening rehabilitation exercises. I was supposed to run a 5k this weekend, but I’m sitting it out until next week when I may try some gentle runs again. Fortunately, the Portland Marathon is still sixteen weeks away, and my level of fitness is good - I’m going to try to maintain that through the weekend on the elliptical. We’ll see how it goes.